


Promise Me You'll Tell Him

by impvme



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-10-08 07:28:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 25,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10381617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impvme/pseuds/impvme
Summary: John delivers Joss' final message to Taylor





	1. Chapter 1

John woke to the incessant tick, tick, tick of the small silver and black clock on his bedside night table. Though he knew it really didn't, the sound from the clock seemed to get louder and louder every day, especially at night. Each tick of the second hand was a continuous reminder of time he will spend wading through each second, minute, hour, day, week…. At this point he can just barely think about what will happen today. In his mind he knows that time will continue to flow over, around and through him as it has for what's it been now, about 2 months? He fills the days with mindless distractions so he doesn't have to think past the minutes he's currently in. He won't think, can't think about tomorrow, much less the future. How do you think about something that you know no longer exists for you?

Most nights he lays awake - at war with himself - in a pitched battle with sleep. On nights when Morpheus has refused John any place, the promise of the coming day's sameness is dulled by sleep deprivation. On those nights the shapes, nooks, crannies and the 115 cracks in the loft's ceiling, have become his midnight Rorschach's test. The ones in the northeast corner form a sniper behind cover, southwest – an exploding grenade and the one in the center of the ceiling – is a spreading blood stain on a dirty street corner. But as usual his eye is drawn to the shape in the southern part of the ceiling about 3 feet from the large floor to ceiling bank of windows. Day or night, that spot holds his attention when he's at home. And some nights, when the moon is softly beaming through the towering expanse of glass, that crack limned shape seems to glow a gentle gold like the NYPD detective's badge it resembles.

John considers what his midnight Rorschach test would suggest to a psychiatrist. If Finch had a medical plan with a psychiatrist on it John's sure that they would recommend therapy for him. Couple that with his jihad against Simmons and Alonzo Quinn while bleeding out and his instance of going it alone during his recuperation made John certain he would probably be committed by that same psychiatrist with orders of deep, intensive, long term, drug added therapy. But that's not something he would ever really have to worry about since he'd never speak to a psychiatrist even if under the threat of death. The thought of Finch having a medical plan for what they do brought a mirthless smile to John's face. He scoffs at the picture that pops in his mind of Finch doggedly trying to make John see a psychiatrist. Harold Finch, he scoffs and acknowledges he could be almost as stubborn as himself.

John's mind wanders back to the day he left the library the second time, after being shot on that dreadful November night. After the first time, when Finch had found him trying to end Quinn's life in that FBI hotel room and all but bled out from Simmons's inflicted gunshot wounds, Finch had adamantly and, what for him was very vocally, announced that John would be staying at the library with him until John had recovered. Then, John had no choice but to stay since he really couldn't take care of himself. But as soon as he could stand and walk without collapsing, John had left the library. He could not stay there with The Machine just feet away. The Machine, which could seem to help everyone except the most important ones, had shown John it could not be trusted. He couldn't stand to be so close to the answer to why not her and not be able to get the answer, or beat the answer out of it, or fix any of it.

So he had to go. It would have been comical watching the bird of a man trying to stop the monster if it hadn't been so sad. Even as determined as Finch could be, when he stepped in front of John and grabbed his arm to prevent him from leaving and then saw the look in John's eye's, Finch knew that the irresistible force had met the immovable object. Finch dropped his hand and John quietly moved around him and went home to his loft to recuperate in abject misery, alone.

Home. Where was that? Not this city any longer. In the last few months or so, John thought that he had finally got a handle on that concept, that idea of home. With joining the military he had basically all but given up on calling one place home, especially after Jessica had died. When John had met Jessica, the notion that there was a chance that he could stop moving and plan a real future, had started scratching at the door of his mind. Just as he had started to open the door to see what home might look like, 9/11 happened, he re-upped, and Jessica moved on without him.

He had missed his second chance with Jessica the day he unexpectedly ran into her at the airport. She had asked him to ask her to wait for him. Locked behind his teeth and clogging his throat, the words she needed to hear tumbled from his mouth only after she walked away from him, too late for her to hear his love for her. When she had called him just before the mission to Ordos he heard the fear and sadness in her voice. She was in trouble, she needed him. He had been given another chance with her and he was grabbing it. He told her to hold on because he was coming for her. But again he was too late; the mission had taken too long. By the time he got to her she had died; murdered at the hands of her husband. The door was resoundingly shut on the plaintive cries from the idea of settling down, of home. So, John fled as far from "home" as being a special operative with the CIA could take him, never to return again. Or so he thought.

Before losing Jessica, he had loved being in the military. It had appealed to the protective part of his personality and his heart. Even if he no longer had a home, he could at least protect his home country, and those who lived there who still had a home. Mostly it was a great job. John remembered what his friend Bruce used to tell him a million years ago when they were in high school during the requisite 'what do you want to be when you grow up' talks.

"Yo, BK! Did you talk to that recruiter today at the meet and greet?" Bruce huffed out as he ran to catch up with John.

"Naw. I think I'm gonna' look into joining the local PD, ya know," John answered softly as they fell into step with each other.

'To Protect and to Serve'. John liked that motto. He liked helping people, protecting them. John had gotten the nickname of BK, Bully Killer, during high school. He physically hurt whenever he saw someone picking on and terrorizing anyone who couldn't defend themselves. So if he saw something like that going down, he always stepped up and in to stop it, prevent it or end it. His school had no bullies by the time he graduated. And though everyone didn't love John, they certainly did respect him, and some even feared him. The fear part didn't sit well with him, but if it helped to keep people safe, he found he could live with that.

"Come on, man, the local PD?" Bruce scoffed. "There's so much out there in this big wide world to see. There's Japan, Mt. Fuji and girls, Hawaii, the hula and girls, South Carolina, soul food and girls." Bruce said as he ticked the different places he wanted to go off on his fingers and the people he wanted to meet.

He continued, "England-girls, Africa-girls, Canada-girls, France – oui, oui – girls and oh yeah, did I mention bodacious babes with gnarly ta-tas," he smirks "and girls?"

John can't help but smile because his friend is girl crazy and has been since, well ever since they met in the 6th grade. Bruce laughs when he sees John smile.

"Come on, BK. I thought that we were gonna join together and then travel the world? You know, a girl in every port and a port in every girl?" Bruce waggles his eyebrows at John and bumps him with his shoulder.

"Man, that's just skank," John says as he scrunches up his nose in distaste at Bruce's sexist remark.

John liked girls and wanted to have a girlfriend, but he really wasn't one of those guys who went with more than one girl at a time. He just wasn't an operator like that. Even though he had tried pimpin' once, but doing that to girls just went against his grain.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever, man.", Bruce scoffed.

"Look, I'm joining as soon as I can. I told my mom. You know how she is."

"She cried," they said in unison and laughed. They walked on in companionable silence for a few more steps.

"What'd your dad say?" John asked, not looking at Bruce and some concern showing through in his voice.

Bruce was very close to his dad, but his dad had always seemed to have something against the armed services and had told Bruce, and John, in no uncertain terms, that they should not join any branch of the military. He'd told Bruce that he would disown him if he did join. Now here was Bruce spazzing out about joining.

"He…..umm. We'll have to talk about it…when he's speaking to me again." Bruce's answer is low with hints of deep sadness running through it and he looks his at feet which have suddenly become his focus. He briefly glances over at John and sees the sorrow in his eyes and decides to put a brighter face on his problems about his decision. "Hey, I'm a man now, so he'll just have to get over it and accept my decision, you know?"

John smirks and says, "Yeah, join the Army and be all that you can be, right?" He can hear the false bravado in Bruce's comment and wishes he could somehow make this decision easier on his friend.

He actually felt that it would be rad for his best bud to join the army. Bruce was a bit of a Clydesdale and John knew he would do well in most branches of the military. John was sure that military life just wasn't for him. Until he got into trouble and a Judge gave him a choice; enlist or go to jail. So John enlisted. As he was signing the recruitment papers, Bruce who had lived up to his word and went in as soon as he graduated, his voice kept playing in John's head. He could hear Bruce saying his favorite slogan and see that smirk on his face accompanying the words. "Join the military, travel the world, meet interesting people and kill them."

That's what John's life became: meeting interesting people and killing them. They had told him it was to protect his country, and that had appealed to his need to help and protect; a need that he didn't even really know was such a part of him then. He ended up loving the military…for a while. Until he started to question his purpose and missions. Even through his training and conditioning John could and still did think for himself. Doubts crept in and he started to see the lies and deception behind his missions. The guilt he felt about the innocent people he knew he had killed had begun to destroy his soul. During the Ordos, China mission with his partner Kara, when he barely escaped with his life, he knew he couldn't retire his partner as he had been ordered to by his boss, Mark Snow. He had continued to seriously question what he now did for a living. John was considering getting out of the business. But he knew there was no real getting out. The only way out was to be retired. Not what he really wanted since retirement from this business always meant dead.

Retirement. John scoffed at that euphemism and thought about how he couldn't retire Kara as he had been ordered, but she had no such problems about killing him. She had been given the same order of retirement for John and cold bloodedly shot him. If the missiles sent to retire them both hadn't been so close she would have completed the job and he would now be doing his retirement in some unmarked grave in China pushing up daisies. After he healed from Kara's gunshot, the guilt about all of the lives he had unquestioningly taken and the innocent blood on his hands became all-consuming and paralyzing.

He was purposeless and a worthless man for what he had done. He knew within his heart that he had been a good man at one time. But the CIA, Snow, Kara, the lies, deception, and all of the killing, had driven goodness from his heart and from his soul. Like Kara told him once, "We're not walking in the dark, we are the dark". He was now what they had worked so hard to turn him into – a monster, a monster that looked like a man. It was easy for him to disappear and become no one so he did just that.

He wandered the streets for a few years and lived on them. Guilt for his previous acts as an assassin ate away at him. He knew there was no way to make it right. He had lost his purpose after Kara's retirement attempt. Within the guilt from all of the innocent lives he had taken and the grief of not being there in time to save Jessica, he had lost himself as well. After a while John contemplated his demise. This torture that was now his life, he wanted it to end. He just wasn't sure how to get it done. He was already a retired operative, a dead man on paper. Now all he had to do was make it a reality.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Taylor's trying to have a conversation with his mom about her experiences in war is drawn from conversations that I use to try to have with my dad about his time in Italy during WWII and Korea during the Korean War. He finally told me about one of his experiences where he had engaged the enemy and killed the person. He never told me anything else again about the war. He was awarded the Purple Heart in WWII.

Sounds of his dad moving around in the kitchen and shortly after, the scent of bacon, eggs and toast slipped down the hall and into the guest room. No, it was no longer the guest room. As of about 2 months ago it had become his room -permanently. His room, his hall, his home…..home. Taylor wasn't too sure what that really meant these days. Living with his dad was turning out to be ok. He loved his dad and they had started building a good relationship about a year ago when his dad had suddenly reappeared in his and his Mom's life. Getting to know each other had been full of fits and starts but the bumps had started to smooth out. They were working through things and he was getting to know him as his Dad and as a person. That this was now his only home was not a good thing. Not because he was living with his dad full time now but the reason why he now had to live with his dad was unreal. Packing up the previous home he had shared with his mom for most of his life and coming to live with his dad for good had been the second hardest thing he had ever done.

Like his mom, his dad was also a vet. Taylor had asked his mom what it was like being a soldier and being in the war but she didn't talk about it unless he asked and even then she would tell him as little as possible. She said she saw and experienced some very bad and sad things but that was about the extent of their discussions. He had often seen her Purple Heart medal and knew what it stood for; she had been injured in the war. He even asked her once to show him the scar, she wouldn't. He knew it was because she didn't think he was ready to see how badly his mom had been hurt and when he was a little kid she was right, he wasn't ready. But as he got older and she still wouldn't talk with him about her experience, Taylor knew then that it was because she wasn't ready to share that horrible part of her life with him…her baby boy. The last time he'd asked her about it he wasn't a baby anymore and had expected her to be as honest with him about this as she was about most everything else he needed to discuss with her. But she brushed it off saying it was in the past, she'd dealt with it, he didn't need to worry about it 'cause she was fine.

"I'm fine baby, I'm ok, I'll be alright Tay", and "Don't worry about me honey." Her stock answers for Taylor whenever he let her know he was worried about her. Sometimes he really hated it when she did her supermom slash super cop thing. She was a great mother and an awesome detective but he could see the frustration, aggravation and lately fear and uncertainty weighing heavy in her eyes and effecting her with many sleepless nights. So Taylor did what he could to help remove some of the weight from her shoulders. He was spending a lot more time at his dad's but when he was home he made sure that as soon as he got home from school he would complete all of his homework. He didn't leave a mess in the kitchen or living room and even occasionally would have dinner ready for her when she got home. His mom didn't know but he'd wake sometimes in the middle of the night when he'd hear her get up and start roaming around the house cleaning, because she couldn't sleep again. The thought of his mom sneaking around on tiptoe so as not to wake him while trying to clean the house made a small chuckle bubble out of him.

She hadn't known that Taylor would wake up frequently in the middle of the night whenever she did. Or about the other times either; when he'd wake to her muffled cries of names he couldn't quite make out and then her quiet footsteps would tiptoe into his room to check on him. She didn't know about those nights he heard her crying quietly in the living room because she didn't think he could hear her from there. The first time Taylor had heard his mom cry he was still a little boy. It was a couple of days after the night she had made Dad leave and told him to not come back until he got help. Dad had stormed in the house demanding to see him. Taylor remembers smelling, what he later found out was alcohol, on Dad's breath. About 20 minutes later his mom had rushed through the front door and had him go upstairs with the baby sitter. His dad had scared him and frightened him badly that night and when his Dad reappeared in his life just about a year ago that fear was still there. That fight between his parents had scared that little boy, but not as much as hearing his mom cry a few nights later did. Taylor remembered thinking that even though he saw no cuts or scrapes, his mom must be hurt bad because Mom never cried.

The last time he had laughed was the day before his mom was killed. He was at his dad's house and they were playing some video game. Dad wasn't too bad but Taylor was soundly beating him and laughing at how bad his Dad was at the game they were playing. Mr. BA was very good at MPSG's just like Taylor thought he would be after seeing him in action when he rescued Taylor from that gangster. Taylor liked John. He got to call him by his first name which was unusual. But mom wouldn't tell Taylor John's last name either so he couldn't call him Mr. whatever. Shortly after John had rescued him, Taylor's curiosity had gotten the better of him and one day. Before his mom barely got in the door, he started firing endless questions at her about John.

"OK, Mom we need to talk about Mr. Badass. Where'd you meet him? What's his real name? Is he a cop too? How come I never met him before? Can I invite him over for dinner?"

The questions tumbled out of Taylor's mouth practically tripping over one another before the next one tried to pop out.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa there!" Joss shot at Taylor with her hands up in front of her. "Hello to you too son. So glad to see you mom and how was your day?" Joss stated as she gave him the 'don't be so rude, and slow you roll' look.

While she was taking off her coat and depositing her things on the table by the door, by way of an apology Taylor ducked his head twice, and walked over to his mom and gave her a tight squeeze and a peck on the cheek. Just as he took a deep breath to start the questions again his mom put her hands on his arm and lead him to the couch where they sat while his mom held both his hands in hers.

"Taylor I know that you have a lot of questions about him, John. And Yes I think it's time we talked too. So to answer some of your questions, I met him through work, no, he is not a police officer, yes, he does help me from time to time and his name is not Badass. He's an adult and I don't want you addressing him that way. His name is John."

Taylor lets out a small scoff of exasperation.

"I know his first name is John mom but what's his last name. And I know his boss is Mr. Finch; he's a pretty cool dude too. We did talk some th, th, that night." he says as he drops his eyes from his mom's and looks at his hands wrapped in hers.

He didn't mean to stutter but sometimes the effects of his being kidnapped at gun point would show up out of nowhere and just slam into him. He tried not to let his mom see that but, he wasn't always fast enough to hide it. He knew she had noticed a couple of times when things were off, just like she noticed the stutter now. He was sure she knew why he'd stuttered because she squeezed his hands gently. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and worried it a bit before answering his question. Taylor could see her make the decision not to tell him John's full name before she gave him the answer to the question.

"For now baby, you can just call him John, ok."

So John it was. They sat on the couch and talked about John, Mr. Finch, John's boss, the guy with the scare on his face that had kidnapped him and why Taylor had been dragged into her work. After about an hour or so his mom had gotten tired of the interrogation, her words, and finally put an end to the questions by telling Taylor he could invite John over for dinner so he could get some of his answers straight from the horse's mouth. Then she said the conversation was over by way of dismissing him to finish his school work.

"Mom", Taylor called over his shoulder on his way to his room. "It feels weird to call him John so can I call him Mr. BA? He kinda reminds me of that character on that old TV show you liked, ummmm Team…, Team…"

His mom laughed as the name of the show sprang from her lips. "You mean the A Team?"

She gave a serious belly laugh that made Taylor smile as he watched her. But then her laughter sputtered off when she said with a smirk.

"No wait. He is kinda like B.A. Baracus. Ok, Mr. BA is good." she said starting to chuckle to herself quietly.

On her way to the kitchen he thought he heard his mom say that John certainly belonged on the A list of… but the last of her remark was lost as she walked out of the room laughing to herself. He could tell his mom liked John too.

She hadn't raised a nosy or impolite child but Taylor had inherited his mom's curiosity, intelligence, stubbornness and dogged determination. So he noticed how she would talk to Mr. BA when he called. Even though Taylor only heard one side of the conversation he knew when she was talking to John. John used to call every now and then but after his mom had sent John to rescue him, Taylor knew that it was John who now called her almost every night. Some times when she said it was just work or when she would scowl at her phone and not answer it, he knew it was John calling. When her tone would be soft and tired but a little lighter at the end of a call it was John. Usually when he overheard their conversations she seemed to be mad or exasperated with John and fussed at him until she hung up. Taylor knew that his mom was using her, 'have you lost your ever loving mind' scowl on John even though John couldn't see it through the phone. He also realized that a lot of the times when she would get a phone call late at night or on the weekends, say it was work and then rush out of the house, it was really John calling.

John was the only person Taylor knew of that could make his mom so angry, concerned and happy to talk to all within the same conversation. He was also the only person that he knew of besides Mr. Fusco that his mom would fly out of the house to go help if he called and needed her. If he saw her before she charged out of the house she would have this look on her face that was a cross between worry, determination, concern, fear and sometimes anger. Taylor knew it was all because of and for John. He had found out the truth about John's and his mom's unusual relationship by accident about a year and half ago.

On that night Taylor was spending the night at his friend Steve's house and they were working on their English project that was due in two days. Taylor thought he had brought the thumb drive that had his part of the project information on it with him but had left it at home. His laptop was at home too but he remembered he hadn't shut it down because he was running late for Steve's. He had just grabbed what he need most and rushed out the door. Since it was a simple thing and his laptop was set up for remote log in, he was going to access his computer from Steve's house and transfer the info to Steve's computer.

Taylor knew that his Mom should be home right about then so when he remotely logged in to his computer he turned on the mike and camera to see what she was up to. Really he just wanted to see how she was, if she was alright. He hadn't seen her since this morning. Even though she always told him she was ok and not to worry about her, how could he not worry about her. Her job was dangerous at times and he now knew firsthand how easy it was for the danger to follow her and reach out to touch them anywhere. When the camera turned on he saw that the house was dark. The mic however was picking up sounds of someone moving around in the house. Through the back camera on the laptop Taylor could just make out the image of someone, a man, by the doors to the balcony. Taylor's mouth went dry and he started to tremble when he realized someone had broken into their home and was probably waiting to hurt his mom.

Just as he had started to fumble his phone out of his pocket to call Det. Fusco he heard the front door open and knew it was his mom. She was home. He heard her call his name a couple of times before she noticed there was someone in the apartment. Taylor was half way between standing and pulling his phone from his pocket but became frozen to the spot as he heard the man tell his mom that Taylor wasn't there, he was at a friend's house studying. That this man knew his schedule made a new fear spring to life in Taylor's heart. His mom must have turned the lights on then because he could now see that she had her service weapon out and pointed at the man. But just as quickly as she had drawn it she lowered it and started talking to the man. Taylor was so frightened for his mom that it took him a couple of seconds longer than his mom to recognize the man in his home.

When he saw who it was he sat back down hard in the chair he hadn't quite finished getting out of. With a small groan Taylor let out a shaky breath and tried to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth which, in the last few seconds, had become as dry as the Mojave. He couldn't get his phone back in his pocket because his hands were shaking so badly so he dropped it on the desk where he was sitting. He almost screamed then from the tension and fear when he realized he had thought he was going to see his mother be injured or even killed right in front of him and he was powerless to stop it. It was Mr. BA in their apartment and mom was using that exasperated tone on him and saying something about John coming over and making his self at home. John was speaking low so Taylor was having a hard time understanding him.

All sorts of thoughts started running through Taylor's head. How did John get in their home? Did mom give him a key? If mom gave John a key he must be very important to her and she must trust him, a lot! Why didn't she tell him she had given John a key? John was still talking to Taylor's mom when he heard his mom say….

"Who's gone, John?"

Her tone had changed and she was no longer ticked off at John. Her voice said she was concerned and what he could still see of her face did too.

John turned to look at his mom and Taylor could see the stress on his face. Then John said,

"Finch. She took him."


	3. Chapter 3

One night when John had thought he was ready to end his misery, on his way to his death, he got into a fight with some punks on a subway. A cop detained him and they bought him to an extraordinary NYPD detective who changed his mind about so many things because, she changed him. The changes had begun so subtly that one day he was surprised to hear that scritch, scritch of home again on the backdoor of his mind and heart all because of her, Detective Joselyn Carter. Though she had started out as an enemy she had become so much more. It still amazed and confounded him the path, the orbit that he and Jocelyn had found them-selves in. Unbelievably he had been blessed to find someone that, once again, connected him to the world in Jocelyn Carter.

It had been a strange journey for them from enemy to asset, to partners, to friends, to whatever their relationship finally is…was. She became the center of John's universe and he was inexorably locked in her orbit. She had made him a better person. He had started to see snips of his old self, of the real man he had been before the CIA, and of the new man, the good man she saw in him. And he so wanted to be that good man he saw shining from her eyes when she looked at him. Well, when he wasn't pissing her off that is. A small smile tugs at the corners of John's mouth at the thought of how many times he had pissed her off intentionally and un.

Throughout most of their relationship, even though they were having a hard time defining as Joss had said "whatever this is" between them, John knew that "whatever this is" had become the most important relationship in his life. That's when he heard the knock on the door to his heart again and day by day it got louder and louder. But he wasn't brave enough yet to open it and look out. He knew though that when he did look, that notion of home would be wearing the face, body, heart and soul of Jocelyn Carter.

John was restless and his mind was a reflection of how his body felt. His thoughts kept fliting between the people that meant the most to him and their influence, witting or not, on his life. Finch had changed him. The night he met Finch, he had given John a chance at a new purpose and reason to remain in the here and now. After the CIA had so badly corrupted and then taken away the purpose he swore to defend with his life, John had to run from them to not only preserve his life but his soul as well. He had shredded his past life and melted into the world of people that are no longer seen. He blended into the world of the homeless, the disenfranchised, ignored and unseen denizens of New York City. He had disappeared and become a no-body.

With all the hype and rhetoric the CIA had fed him to convince him he was doing the right thing in becoming the deadly weapon that was John Reese, all he really had been with the CIA was a non-person, an asset, a thing. He was not a human being. He was just a tool, a finely crafted monster with an expiration date that when used and past its useful date was disposed of and easily replaced by the next fool who would drink their Kool Aid.

In the past he was a trained killer with lies and deception as a driving force in his life but not a real person any longer. His name wasn't even real. His then partner, fellow CIA assassin Kara Stanton, had snatched his name out of the air and pinned it on him. It belonged to nobody. It belonged to him. So he became what he knew he was, a dead man walking, and lived as such on the streets of New York City for a couple of years. Then Finch found him and gave him a job and a purpose that he truly loved. And that job made John something he thought he would never be again. It made him happy.

Though it could never truly wipe them away or balance the scales of the atrocities he'd committed, the job might help make up for all of the wrong he'd done in his past. The job and the people he helped and saved came to be something he thought he'd never have again and knew he really didn't deserve. Once again he found himself with people he loved and called friends, a new sense of friendship, home and finally even love. Until…

For the last two months, along with the insomnia at night, John sometimes cried. He no longer even notices the tears as they leak from the corners of his eyes and burn hot tracks down his face or lodge in the salt and pepper hair at his temples. He's tried not to think about her, about Joss, too much. During the day, when he's wandering about the city, he could derail thoughts of Joss by getting caught up in the small melodramas he sees played out in front of him as he observed the city's inhabitants. He hadn't asked Finch anything about the numbers and Finch insisted anyway that he would not even consider giving him any numbers until Dr. Tillman give John the ok to return to work. The immobility and nothing to do made him restless and broody. So he first started walking to build strength and to just leave the loft and also to see Bear. It still surprised him how much he missed that dog. When Bear looked at him he did not see the concern or feel the waves of grief coming off him like everyone else in his team. He couldn't possibly help anyone grieve when he didn't know how to deal with his own grief.

Bear loved it when John started including him in his walks. He got to see John and going new places with all of the great new smells always put a doggie smile on his face. Then John walked to burn off the nervous energy. Finally it became a way to avoid what he didn't and couldn't face. So now he walks the city. Walks when he can't sleep. Walks when frequently, he can't or doesn't want to eat. Walks when he doesn't want to talk to Finch, Fusco, Shaw or Zoe, which is most of the time. Walks when he can't think which now seems to be all the time. He walks sometimes 18 or more hours a day or until he can't walk any longer. Until exhaustion drags him to the loft where he finally passes out and sleep, undisturbed by dreams of Joss and nightmares of her death in his arms, mercifully claims him.

John was now back to about 85% of his normal health but gaining back that last 15% was being severely hindered by the insomnia and lack of nutrition. He knows he can't continue on like this, not eating, not sleeping. He has to make a decision. The ticking of the clock is like point and counter point to what's running through his mind- stay, go, stay, go, stay, go. He wants to run, screaming from this city. Every where he looks he sees Joss. Every corner he turns he expects to see her flash her badge and ask him, with that cute frown on her face, what's he doing there. With every shuddering breath he breaths her in and every night tries to flush out the grief of her loss with his tears. He loves Finch and what had been their purpose but its time.

Time. He had so much of it yet so little to spend with those he loved. If only he could just redeem what he had lost. All those nights and stake outs he'd spent with Joss. He should have put that time with her to good use the way it was meant to be used. The most precious gift he'd ever received was time with Joss, and he didn't realize it until it was too late. He had let Finch and even Fusco know what they mean in his life. He's not so sure that if he told Fusco how he appreciates all the times he's had his back that Fusco would believe him. A small chuckle escapes John as he wonders what new names Fusco would invent if he told him how he felt about all of them. Even though he has told Finch that he appreciated what he's done, the purpose he's given him to his life again, it never seemed adequate. Somehow the words, thank you, didn't seem quite right, like not enough.

Just as "Please wait for me", wasn't quite right so he didn't say them to Jessie when she pleaded with him to ask her to stay. If he had only said those words to her and she would have waited for him to come back to her. No the words were right, the time was wrong. At least that's what he had convinced himself of. Jessica knew the real reason why he couldn't say those words to her that day. He wanted a life for them, together, home, family and friends.

But Jessica was right on both counts when she angrily flung at him, "You thought that you would die over there and that hurt me. I think it was just easier for you to be alone, John."

There was very little that he was afraid of. But having the people he loved and cared for hurt because of him terrified him. So John figured that if there was no one to care about or for him he could focus on his work and be all the better for it. So he had let her go that day at the airport. He had loved Jessica, he was afraid of hurting her and he had been a coward. That fear and cowardice let Jessica walk out of his life and into the arms of Peter Arndt, into the arms of her death.

Nobody thought John was a coward. Only John knew that secret and the truth of it. After all, with his job it was SOP that he put his life on the line with every number he and Finch tried to help. But unfortunately he wasted too much time before he realized another secret. He had fallen in love with Joss Carter. When he realized what Joss was trying to do with HR and she wouldn't let him help her, the fear of her getting hurt, him not being there to help her and losing her, returned. The level of fear at not being there to help her and keep here safe had retched up so high that when he charged into her home, gun in hand, and found her missing he wasn't sure what to do. Standing in her bedroom and feeling lost she surprised him by calling him and letting him know she knew he was in her home, in her bedroom.

"I hear you've been looking for me." Joss said with a smirk in her voice.

But John was wound so tight that he brushed over the joke. He tried to reason with her and it took all of his training to keep the fear and desperation out of his voice when he pled with her, "Please let me help you, I need to help you."

She stopped his pleas by asking him for the same thing he had asked from her recently.

"You once asked me to trust you John, to do what had to be done. Now I'm asking you for the same thing. Trust me."

What could he do but wait for the call she then promised him she would make if she needed him. But he needed to be with her. His number had come up and he had to let Joss know how he felt about her before his time ran out. He determined then that he would find the time to let her know what had been hidden in his heart these last few months. Joss wasn't Jessica and he wasn't going to make that same mistake of not letting her know how much she meant to him. When she did call, John was ready to give her anything, everything, any backup that she needed. The relief at knowing that he would be there by her side to help and protect Joss coursed through him and removed the fear and desperation. John Reese the trained assassin was back and ready to do or give anything to protect the women he loved, including his life. But she gave hers instead - for him.

The clock seemed to be ridiculously loud and is taunting him with one of its usual refrains – she's, gone, she's, gone, she's, gone. So the cracking and tinkling sound it makes when it hits the wall and the little pieces go careening across the floor gives John a small measure of satisfaction.

"That's the third clock this month", John muses as a small wry grin fleetingly crosses his face. "Maybe the problem's not the clock after all."

Its 6:30 a.m. and a barely pink sliver of light is sliding through the loft windows. He'll go to the library and retrieve Bear for company today. He heaves a deep bone weary sigh and gets up to face the next day once again sleep deprived and on automatic pilot dreading what the day will bring. Today's the day he'll tell Harold he can't stay.


	4. Chapter 4

Almost two years ago

Taylor's hand flew to cover his mouth. Mr. Finch had been kidnapped! Memories of Taylor's kidnapping crashed into him. His heart started pounding again and the shakes returned to his body. Taylor's breathing was rapid, shallow and trembling. A light sheen of sweat had broken out on his face and was glistening on his forehead and upper lip. It was happening all over again.

Taylor could feel the hand on his arm of that horrible man with the scared face that grabbed him and threw him into the backseat of the SUV. The sound of the gun was in Taylor's ear again as it fired and killed the security guard, Mr. Fretias. He was trying to stop the man from taking him. The screeching tires of the big black car that came to a halt down the street from the SUV they stuffed him in distracted everyone. A man with anger and determination written on his face jumped out of it with guns blazing. Hope griped Taylor as he saw the man from the car take down one of his kidnappers.

Then fear replaced hope when the man from the car took a bullet to his shoulder. But he didn't go down. He seemed to be coming at them in slow motion as he continued firing at the man with the scar face. Then the kidnapper ran around the SUV and got in on the opposite side of the backseat using Taylor as a shield from the angry man trying to free Taylor. The biting acrid smell of the gun powder was back in Taylor's nostrils as if it was happening now. The look on the man's face who was trying to rescue him as the kidnappers sped away with Taylor is burned in his memory forever. That man's face was John's. Seeing John's face during the kidnapping but hearing his voice in the present brought Taylor back to the here and now.

Taylor focused on John's voice and the conversation with his mom. His heartbeat and breathing were returning to normal. As he rubs a minutely trembling hand across his face he is shocked to feel it come away wet with sweat. Even though the flashback seemed to last for forever it was only a few seconds long. As he's calming down and coming back to the present Taylor realizes he had missed some of their conversation. His mom was now offering to help John find Mr. Finch.

"Ok. I can file missing persons; send Finch's pictures to sheriffs' offices and the FBI…" Taylor's mom is listing what she can start on to help Mr. Finch when John interrupts her.

"You can't. Finch went off grid for a reason. We have to find him on our own."

Off grid? Like criminals or someone trying to hide from the law!? Mr. Finch and John could not be criminals because Taylor knew, knew that his mom would never work with criminals. Work to catch them, yes. Work with them, when pigs fly. Fear gripped Taylor's chest again as he heard John say that Finch's kidnapper had already killed someone. So many scene's of Mr. Finch being hurt started to play through his mind that he lost track of John and his mom's conversation again. The solid sound of the door hitting the jamb in his house as it closed behind John's exit brought Taylor's attention back to his computer screen. As she worries her bottom lip and thinks about what was happening, Taylor watches his mom and wonders how she could help John find Mr. Finch.

Though John didn't seem to come to their house very often, when he did he was there sometimes during the day when Taylor got home. That fact sort of became their little secret. But usually it was at strange times during the night that John visited their home. So Taylor took to leaving his computer in remote mode and he had a motion activated app that would start recording when it detected movement in the room. He had deactivated the record light so whoever was in camera range wouldn't see the light and know they are being recorded. He'd review the recordings the next day. That's how he found out that his mom didn't give John a key. John just broke in to Taylor's house whenever he came over and apparently whenever he wanted to.

It surprised him at first that his mom knew that John would break into their home. The night that Mr. Finch was taken she sounded like she was mad with John for it. After watching a few videos of John and his mom talking during one of John's late night visits, Taylor realized she was fine with it. She asked John to be careful when he left and not to go out the way he came in. John told her he always does. He usually came over during the day when Taylor and his mom weren't home but he figured that was because his mom and John usually worked different shifts. It made Taylor a little nervous at first when he found out that John was in his home sometimes when he and his mom where sleeping. Since he left his computer downstairs Taylor could only track John there. He'd watch him break in then John would disappear into some other part of the house and then come back into view.

Not knowing what John was up to when he went out of range was driving Taylor crazy so he set up a network of wireless pinhole cams to track John's movements throughout his house. He knew his mom would be upset with him if she found out that he had put a camera in her room but he had to know what John was doing at night in her room. John had rescued him and he trusted John but Taylor was curious about him and wanted to know what he did at his house when he broke in. The very day Taylor got his network up and running he finally saw what John did on his unannounced visits.

While they were sleeping, after John would break in, he would roam through the house and check all of the windows and doors to make sure they were secure. Usually, after his rounds downstairs, he would come to Taylor's room, check the windows and sometimes pull the covers over him or turn off the light or radio Taylor had fallen asleep to. Then he'd go to mom's room. It took John a long time to do his ninja rounds there, especially if mom was home sleeping. He would finish and then sometimes John would sit and just watch his mom sleep. Most times John sat in the window seat in her room and in turns would watch his mom sleep and look out of the window watching the street below.

The first time Taylor reviewed his nanny cam recordings it sort of creeped him out that John had such free range in his home. John could and did have access to all of his and his mom's stuff, their secrets and them. It made Taylor second guess his trust in John. He started to wonder if he should tell his mom about their mostly night visitor but decided to observer John's activities for a few more visits. After watching about 3 weeks of John's visits Taylor knew John was ok and that trust he had in him was earned by John. He finally understood why John paid them the late night visits. John was not only his rescuer he was Taylor's and his mom's protector. Taylor fervently hoped that John's protectiveness extended to his mom during her work hours. If Mr. BA had mom's back Taylor knew that he could finally relax when she went to work every day.

After two or three weeks Taylor was going to remove the camera from mom's room. The camera had been put on a timer so that it started recording after his mom went to sleep, but watching his mom in her privet space made him feel scuzzy and he had the info he need by then. He knew that John would not hurt his mother and that in fact, from John's seemingly guardian stance at her window at night, he wouldn't let anyone hurt her. He had basically stopped watching the recordings of John's night visits because, most of the time, the day ones were way more interesting.

Since no one was home and he didn't have to do his ninja thing and stay quiet during the day, John just made himself at home. He also had a bit of a sweet tooth and a thing for Apple Jacks, just like Taylor and his mom did. He found mom's stash of chocolates too and would once every week or so swipe a piece. Taylor began to think John knew he was being watched because sometimes John would mess with things, move stuff a little or just come by and eat a bowl or two of Apple Jacks and then leave. Then a day or so later, when Mom would go to have a bowl and there was practically no cereal left, she'd give Taylor the what for about eating all of the Apple Jacks again. Whenever John would mess with stuff it was always little stuff but things that mom would think Taylor had used and forgot to put back or away.

John moving their stuff intrigued Taylor until one day he realized that John did it because John just liked to bug his mom and listen to her fuss. He knew John was a brave man but he found out how brave when he saw that John just did things to aggravate her so he could see mom ticked off. John would visit and smile and watch her with that look on his face and that smirk on his lips as he listened to mom complain about something she thought Taylor had left out of place.

On some days when John would come round shortly after Taylor and his mom left for school and work, Taylor could see how tired he was. John would check all the doors and windows. Then he would use mom,'s favorite throw as a blanket or pillow and lay on the couch. Or he would just sit with his head resting on the back until he fell asleep. John was almost always gone by the time he got home from school. Taylor wondered how John knew when they would get back but he was usually gone before they walked in the door.

About a month or so before…it…..happened, John had taken to having one particular picture near him during his visits. He would take the picture of mom in her uniform from the wall and hold it. He'd look at it and then touch her face in the picture with that same look on his face that he'd watch her with when he would visit her at night. He'd put the picture on the coffee table and fall asleep while looking at it. Taylor remembered that it was around that time John had also started not resting when he came home in the afternoon. He would mostly pace with mom's picture in his hand. The emotions that would play across John's face when he looked at her picture baffled Taylor. Mostly they would start with that 'look' and go to amused to bewildered and in that final week the expression was a very worried one most of the time.

With a smirk on his face then bewilderment that rivaled the current look on John's face on the recording, Taylor thought about it. He still didn't understand why he trusted John so. After all B&E is such a trust worthy activity. First he thought it was because, after all, how could you not trust someone who just comes screeching into your life, guns blazing, to rescue you from some very bad dudes. From the morning that John had brought him back to his mom in front of the dinner Taylor knew he could trust John with his mom. Not just with her, for he believed that John would never intentionally hurt his mom physically, but that he could and did trust John with her heart as well.

That knowing, that deep within his bones knowing that John would protect his mom at all cost was unsettling to Taylor. He did not understand this profound trust he had in a man he had just met. That he would entrust John to protect and take care of the most important person in his life, the person who was his world, made no sense to Taylor. Taylor knew that the person he should have thought of first to take care of mom was his father. Dad had been in the military and seen combat, he had survived that. So why wasn't his first thought of a protector for his mom his dad? Because he could see that his dad was not able to take care of anyone right now; he was still making adjustments in his life and the relationship he and Taylor were forging was just about all he could manage. And dad didn't look at mom the way John did every time he saw her. And come to think of it mom didn't look at dad the way she looked at John either.

He is his mother's son and his intuition about John told him that rainy morning in front of their favorite diner as Taylor ran into his mother's safe and warm embrace that he could trust him. Now he had the evidence to go along with that trust. Mom and Granma' both told him he has good intuition and he should trust it. Oh wow! Taylor thinks that if he was holding a light bulb it would light up with the revelation he just had about John. He had figured out a long time ago watching John break in and always use mom's favorite throw when he was resting, that John had a thing for his mom. But now he knew. It wasn't just 'a thing'. John was in love with his mother. That's what that look was John had on his face especially when he looked at mom or her pictures. Oh man was mom in love with John too?! Maybe if they hooked up John wouldn't be so sad anymore and even though she tried not to show it mom wouldn't be so lonely either. Whoa. Mr. BA and his mom, now that was a thought! And that thought was very ok with Taylor.


	5. Chapter 5

He was enjoying the quiet with only the tap, tap, clack, clack of the keyboard to accompany the silence in the library. The cup of green Sencha tea he had picked up on his way in today which was, according to the computer screen 4 hours ago, now sat cold on the table within arm's reach. Bear was not currently trying to get him to play fetch and was in fact enjoying a small nap on his doggie bed. Though he enjoyed the solitude, he missed the energy Reese and Shaw brought. Neither Mr. Reese nor Ms. Shaw was the talkative type but their presence seemed to fill the room and fill it with electric energy. No. What he really missed was his friend, John, by his side waiting for a new number. He knew John liked to aggravate him during their wait time by cleaning one of the many guns in his deadly arsenal. A fleeting smile crosses Harold's face as he remembers the conversation he and John had about John doing that very routine in the library.

John's snarky reply of, "People tend to look at me funny when I clean them in the park.", made a smile quickly flit through Harold's eyes as he had watched his friend continue his task with elegant precision.

Harold's fingers stalled over the keys as his mind did a little double take at the word 'friend'. When did that happen? When had John gone from nosey, somewhat irritating employee to friend? Harold understood in that moment that John was just that - his friend. As he thought about that statement Harold knew that wasn't quite right. John was not just a friend. John had become his best friend, confidant, trusted employee and his rescuer on more than one occasion.

Harold had never really been close to any of his employees. For one thing they left his employ pretty quickly. Either the work did not suit them so they quit, they got greedy so he had to fire them or like Mr. Dillinger, they got sloppy and greedy, and died. So it made sense and was easier for Harold not to form an attachment to them. But that hadn't worked with Mr. Dillinger and Harold had grown fond of him. Harold was disappointed with him when he had stolen the lap top and sold it to the Chinese. He was sad that he was going to have to terminate his contract with Mr. Dillinger because of his double cross and would miss his sense of humor and working with him. But the meeting with the Chinese that Mr. Dillinger had set up to sell them the laptop had gone sideways very quickly and ended up FUBAR. That night Mr. Dillinger's hubris and greed brought his life to an untimely end. All that remained then was for Harold to conceal Mr. Dillinger's body in a shallow grave in the park. And start the search for a new employee.

Harold always had another bird in the bush since he realized the job had the potential of a high employee turnover. In fact he usually had two to three other potential employees always under observation. After he had realized that he was going to need help with the numbers he started looking for someone, an employee with a unique skill set that would aid in the irrelevant's protection. His turnover for employees had been higher then he'd like but lower then Harold had originally thought it would be. The work seemed to appeal to a certain type of person; one who the need to protect and help was very high and a guiding part of their life. Harold could hack any one of his candidate's information, psych evals or any test scores that he need. The algorithm that he used to help weed out the least desirable candidates usually got him the ones he needed. They weren't always the best just best for the job. Then came the leg work where he'd actually go and try to observe them personally before he'd approach them. It was on one of the most horrible days of John's life that Harold ran into him, literally.

John had come to the hospital where he knew that Jessica worked to find her. There at the nurse's station John had received the devastating news that Jessica had died about two weeks before in a car accident. He was too late. He couldn't save her like he promised. Harold had been there at the hospital in New Rochelle because Jessica's number had come up and he was hoping to speak to her before she finished her shift that evening. Another number he was working took longer than expected to clean up so when Harold arrived in New Rochelle at the hospital he was too late to save Jessica as well. Harold had heard the nurse deliver John the terrible news and watched a devastated John leave the hospital no longer aware of anything that was going on around him. To this day John still doesn't remember that Harold was the man in the wheelchair he had run into in the hospital's corridor.

After he had returned to New York Harold had started keeping an eye on John. He had the profile and the skill set that Harold needed to help him with the numbers. He just wasn't sure about John's mental stability. Even though he had set up the machine to track John through facial recognition software, John was very hard to keep track of. He'd loose him for weeks and then just get a glimpse of him. John started to be easier to track after his main form of nutrition became alcohol. He had also decided to make one of the many homeless encampments in New York City his home. Harold was able to catch regular glimpses of him entering and leaving the encampment. There was an older lady at the camp that seemed to help John when he would let her. From what Harold could see on camera she would get John to eat and sometimes to even stop drinking for a day or so. But he went right back to it seemingly trying to end his life by alcohol poisoning.

But even in his despair John still had a need to protect. While John made that particular camp his home there were no beatings, no thefts, no rapes and every time donated items made their way to the encampment everyone who had a need would get what was available to be had. John would make sure of it. All it took for the camp to trust John was one guy who thought that because he was the biggest should have whatever he wanted and take it if anyone didn't agree with him. John adamantly disagreed with the oaf's point of view. From what Harold could see from the camera across the street it was a very physical disagreement and also a very short one. John dispatched the ruffian within minutes of the start of the altercation. John was still in his depression but after the fight everyone would wait for John to ok what would happen if someone stepped out of line, if he hadn't taken care of it already.

The brief times that Harold could track John he could see the despair and despondency on his face. He felt that John was running out of time and he needed to approach him soon or he might be reading about him being some unidentified John Doe who had jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge to his death. John hadn't been eliminated by Harold's algorithm and in fact was currently at the top of Harold's candidate list but he still wasn't sure John was the best fit. Until he saw footage from a subway train and John was reminding some punks in a very physical manor that being rude was not very good for them. Harold also saw him being detained by a cop and taken to the 8th precinct. John let a Detective Carter run his prints in a last ditch effort to end his life. Harold was sure that John knew when his prints went through the databases the CIA would be alerted and they would come for him and his miserable life would end. Harold knew it also. He needed to move quickly to get John out of jail before the prints came back and Detective Carter realized she had a career making collar in her holding cell. John seemed to be the best for the job and Harold really needed the help with the numbers. Even if he wasn't sure he was ready, it was time for Harold to give John a job offer.

Harold just barely retrieved John from the precinct and got him into the limo when he saw the Detective rush out of the front door of the precinct looking for John. During the limo ride John openly examined Harold, the car and his security force. Harold figured that John would right away accept his job offer but he had no idea how recalcitrant John could be. John was trying to end his life and was not looking for a job or a life line, just the quickest way out. Harold fleetingly wondered if he was too late to help John but he was still sure, especially after watching the subway fight and the homeless camp brawls, that John was the man for the job. Though he was on his last rope John never killed or used unnecessary force to end any threats he encountered in the homeless camp. John didn't seem to think so but Harold knew he was still a good man. So to convince John of his veracity and John's suitability for the job Harold was going to have to put plan B into action.

Plan B went off without a hitch, well if you don't consider being thrown against a wall while being choked by a trained assassin a hitch. Though Harold was not very copasetic about zip tying John to the headboard of the hotel bed it was necessary for John to understand how important the job was and how much he was needed. After freeing himself and with John's arm at Harold's throat so began their most unusual and unexpected working relationship which finally became a deep friendship. The fact that Harold was a very private person and had no intention of having a relationship with his employee did not escape his attention. But John's almost pathological need to protect and help people coupled with his quest for redemption for his actions while in the CIA just reinforced what Harold knew about John; he was and is a good man.

But she had known that John was a good man even before Harold had. In the interrogation room at the precinct Detective Joss Carter had looked in John's eyes and not seen a bum, some homeless man not worth her time or compassion. She saw a fellow vet that needed a little help moving on with his life and treated him with respect and an offer of help. That's why she had saved John and let them go in the parking garage. She had seen into his soul and like knew like. Harold figured that was one reason she had joined them in their quest to save as many people as possible.

John was also a very damaged man. A large sigh escaped Harold as he thought about just how damaged John was now. After Jessica's death John was just barely holding on to himself. Observing him at the homeless camp Harold could see that John had lost his connection to the world that he had through Jessica. He'd often wanted to tell John about Jessica's number coming up. But he was afraid that John would leave if he found out that Harold had been too late to help her also. But when John found out he didn't leave. He just heaped the guilt about her death higher on his own shoulders. And now guilt about Joss' death was drowning him. Harold knew John no longer had any confidence in the machine. After all it seemed to save everybody else; why not at least one of the most important people in John's life. It had let John down, first by not saving Jessica and now again with the tragic death of Joss.

That horrible night flashed through Harold's mind. As they lay on the ground, John cradling Joss' fatally injured body with his own bullet riddled one, trying to will her to stay with him, to live. Harold remembered he couldn't catch his breath as he watched their co-mingled blood run red on the sidewalk. The memory brought an involuntary shiver to Harold's slight frame. He had only been traumatized that badly twice before in his life, the day Nathan died and then when Root kidnapped him. He had feared for his life during his kidnapping and fully thought and accepted that he would not survive. Even though he had plans in place for such a contingency the fact that John would only accept his safe return and moved heaven and earth to get him back touched him in a place he thought was inaccessible. And Joss was there too, by John's side, doing what she could to help save him from that deranged woman Root. But that night on a dirty street corner they had lost Joss and Harold now feared that he had lost John as well, the only friend he had left in this world.

After the rocky start in Harold and Joss' "working" relationship Harold felt they were on their way to building a friendship as well. His initial distrust of her because of the Agent Snow debacle finally dissipated with the help of John's continual instance that she was ok and Harold could trust her. The unwavering, and to Harold, the unfounded trust that John seemed to put in her was frustrating at best and downright aggravating at worst. Harold never understood how John could forgive her for the double cross she participated in with Snow. For John it was like it never even happened. After working a few cases with her Harold could see why John trusted her however. Her moral compass, as John would say, was pointed in the right direction. She was always trying to help and doing what she thought was best for everyone…except herself. By the time John had been sent up to Riker's prison he had apparently wiggled his way under her skin. With a smirk Harold reflected on how John hadn't really gotten under her skin he had gotten into her heart.

But she had gotten into John's heart too. Harold had seen it happen and knew even before John did. She had become someone John couldn't afford to lose long before her number came up the first time and John realized the world couldn't afford to lose her either. Harold finally admitted to his self that, even if John wasn't aware of it, Joss was very important to John. John admired her ability as a cop. He had tool Harold that he was pretty sure that if the cat and mouse that she and John were doing had continued too much longer there was a real possibility she would catch him. She was that good at what she did. One day John suggested that it would be safer for Harold and him and they could achieve more if he recruited her to work with them instead of against them. But Harold could see that John was really hooked by her strength as a caring, loving, giving person, tenacious single mother, intelligent woman and her moral compass. And then there was her beauty. She was indeed a beautiful woman but Joss' determination to do what was right, to get justice for those who couldn't get it for themselves, struck a chord within John that seemed to resonate to his core. By the time Joss' number came up the first time, Harold could see that John was irrevocably drawn to her. Where that attraction might lead and the possible complications it could bring if it ever became manifest between the two of them had become a real concern for Harold.

John's number was up that horrible night he and Joss had brought Alonzo Quinn in to the Feds and ended HR's reign. Simmons had critically wounded John but Joss had given her life to save John from Simmons. This time John's grief over another woman he had loved being taken from him, who he couldn't save, had driven him over the edge. He had left the safe house and his hospital bed to find and end the life of the man who had ripped his heart out and destroyed his connection to the world. He was going to kill Simmons. Nothing would stop John from getting revenge on Joss's murderer even at the cost of his own life. Harold knew Joss would not approve of it and John was in no shape to hunt down and confront Simmons but John was determined to do just that. Harold was certain that he would not get to John in time to stop him. He was also certain that John had no intention of coming back from this rampage alive. John wanted to be with Joss, he was always ready to follow her anywhere, even to the grave.

Harold's hands had paused on the keys of the keyboard. His mind revisited that tragic scene of finding John bleeding out in the hotel with tears in his eyes and refusing Harold's offer to save his life. A little jolt traveled through Harold as his mind's eye flipped back to John clinging to Joss dying body on that corner. John's agonizing sobs still rang in Harold's ears. Though John didn't die in his bid for revenge when he went after Simmons and Quinn, he didn't really come back either. After Jessica's death John couldn't end his life because the spark of life was still there. Behind those piercing blue eyes that spark still lived and each time John would help someone a bit of it would show thru. Joss had made the spark spring to a red hot coal and it shined from John especially when he talked about her and worked by her side. Harold was glad for her influence on John though that gratefulness came slowly. He could see that she was good for John and that she was somehow changing him for the better. Harold could also see how John was affecting Joss as well and wasn't sure the changes were a good thing. One thing he was sure of, and the length's these two would go to in order to help each other only proved it. That spark of life had been fanned into a flame of love and they were being consumed by it.

But when John awoke and Harold looked into his eyes 5 days, three hours and 42 minutes after they rescued him from certain death at the hotel where he had gone to kill Quinn, that flame was gone. There was nothing left behind those expressive blue eyes and Harold once again feared for John's life. Two days after he awoke John was taken off of IV fluids and nutrition. It took Harold with the help of Bear's continual presence, whining and both of their cajoling, another 3 days to get John to start eating anything at all.

Within two weeks of awakening John was gone from the safe house and the library though Harold had tried to make him stay. Harold scoffs at the audacity of him trying to make John do anything. He had foolishly put his hand on John to try to stop him from leaving. Harold is sure that John would never hurt him but the look in John's eyes the day he had tried to make him stay at the safe house did give him a moment of pause. Harold knew and he understood why John had left. John still trusted him but Harold was sure John now hated the machine and couldn't be near it. After all how could it have saved so many and let those two die.

So Harold gave John what he thought John needed and hoped would help him heal; time and distance. Harold checked on John every day, at least once a day, after John had left the safe house. It was a testament to how badly John was hurt, especially emotionally, that he never once told Harold to leave him alone or that he would be fine or that he wasn't worth Harold's time and effort. The fact that John let Harold 'do for him', by making sure John had food, ate, bathed and do wound care all without protest from John, worried Harold more and more each day. Sixteen days after John had left the safe house he asked Harold not to come by his apartment anymore to help him. John's body was healing. He had started putting on some of the weight he'd lost when he'd first been hurt and his coloring was back to normal. But his eyes were empty. He drifted from day to day void of any direction or desires. He had started visiting the library again ostensibly to get Bear. Bear the therapy dog.

As if he could sense Harold thinking about him Bear stood up stretched, yawned and walked over to Harold for his after nap petting. The tic tic of the dog's nails shoot Harold squarely back to John's hospital bedside as they waited for him to regain consciousness. Sometimes he would be awakened at John's bedside by the sound of Bear's nails on the safe house floor. Though he hadn't had one before, Harold was pretty sure that dogs slept at night like most of their masters. But while John was unconscious the safe house cameras caught Bear in his own routine. In the day time Bear's post was under the foot of John's bed. He would go with Harold to the library when he had to, otherwise he always wanted to be near his master.

Dr. Tilman had scolded Bear once because he had tried to get on the bed with John. And he never did try again….when people were around. Sometimes Harold would hear Bear moving around at night and thought it was just Bear being restless from not enough exercise during the day. After everyone was up and about their usual routines Bear could be found sleeping but still at his post at John's bedside. Harold, being curious about what the dog did during his nocturnal wanderings was shocked when he started watching the safe house feeds. Bear wasn't just working off nervous energy at night. He didn't know if it was part of Bears training or not but after everyone had gone to sleep, every night Bear would walk the entire house as though checking the perimeter for danger or intruders. His habit was to check two to three times a night and before anyone else in the house woke up.

Most nights after each perimeter check the cameras found Bear on the foot of John's bed with his head resting on John's legs. It amazed Harold as he watched Bear get up on the bed how quietly and gently he could jump up there then settle himself with his head on John's legs or on his lap and just watch John. Occasionally Bear would whine, lick John's face or put his nose under John's hand and then fall asleep. But whenever Harold would go to check on John, Bear would be on the floor under the foot of the bed or making one of his nightly perimeter checks. He always expected a big thump or some sound to announce that Bear had moved from the bed to the floor but Harold never heard Bear get off of the bed. Funny how such a large animal could move so quietly. He never seemed to hear that tic tic of Bear's nails on the floor unless Bear wanted him to. A light chuckle escaped Harold at the thought of John and Bear sneaking up on the bad guys. Silent and deadly, something Bear and his master had in common.

Finch hadn't seen John for a couple of days now. He hadn't come for Bear in almost a week. Harold knew he was anthropomorphizing but Bear seemed awfully sad and worried that his master had not been by to see him too. John's visits to the library were becoming fewer and fewer as the days passed. Harold had told John to not think about coming back and working the numbers until he was completely healed. John had not asked about the numbers at all. Harold sensed a drawing away of John and was terribly afraid the withdrawal of John from their work and from him, spelled the end of their wonderful working relationship and their friendship as well. Ultimately Harold feared that John would put that bullet he had shown Joss in the morgue, the one with John's name on it, to use to end his life and be with Joss.


	6. Chapter 6

The last two or three weeks before….well before, Taylor had been so busy with school and teen life. He was at that time confident that John was their protector and didn't feel the need to review the recordings on a daily bases any longer. In fact he only watched them every couple of weeks or so and then like you do with the commercials during your fav shows on your DVR, he would fast forward through all but the parts that interested him. Which is why about a month ago, or rather 24 days, 14 hours, 29 minutes and …10 seconds after Mom's funeral Taylor found himself sitting in front of his laptop, with his finger hovering over the keyboard trying to decide if he should watch the last few weeks of his mother's life or hit the delete button and make it gone just like she was gone. Just like his world was gone.

His anger at the world, at John, who he thought had her back, and at his mom had Taylor's finger swiftly approaching the delete key again. He needed to delete the pain that seemed to have found a permanent place in his heart since that dreadful day Mr. Fusco knocked on his Nana's door with the news that Taylor's world had just been destroyed. But her baby boy just wouldn't let that finger drop. A tear drop hitting the track pad on the laptop stopped Taylor from doing something he was pretty sure he would have regretted the rest of his life if he pushed that delete button. He couldn't destroy this last remnant of her, just sweep it away, like that horrible man had swept her from his life. This piece of what he had left of her, it was important. He had to see her, hear her one more time. Wiping the silent tears from is face with his right hand, his left hand hit play.

There was no fast forwarding through these. His gaze was painfully, and longingly locked to his laptop screen as he watched her move about, spending her last days at home. The contents from one of the boxes from his mom's room were haphazardly spread on the bed surrounding Taylor. In his anger he had thought to trash these remnants too so he found himself going through the box basically trying to decide what stayed and what was to go. The box contained the treasures from her bed side night stand and from the top of her dresser and its first couple of drawers. The day he and his father had returned to the brownstone to pack up, sell or give away what was left of his home, everywhere Taylor looked he saw, heard and still smelled his mother.

He tried to block it out but it overwhelmed him and he wanted to just get their stuff and go so he'd never have to come back to that place again. In his haste and distress to gather everything as quickly as possible Taylor had just started sweeping and throwing things in boxes unheeding of the fragileness of some items. Knowingly or unknowingly he had broken a few of her prize keepsakes before his father had come into her room and made him stop what he was doing.

Taylor had grabbed the box he had been throwing things in and stomped down the stairs and out of the front door to lean on the car and finally sit in it as he fumed and waited for his dad to finish. When his dad came out and got into the car 10 minutes later he softly sighed as he gently rested his hand on Taylors shoulder. Taylor, with the box in a death grip resting on his lap, steadfastly and resolutely looked at the floor of the car. He knew that if he looked at his father and saw the pain, sadness and empathy on his face that he would start to cry and never stop. His dad took him to his Nana's house and went back, alone to the brownstone to finish packing up Taylor's home.

Now in the quiet of his room silent tears flowed down his smooth cheeks as he watched the recording. His hand reached out and touched the screen gently stroking her hair, her face, her hands. Muffled sounds of grief slipped from Taylor as he watched his mom cook him the rare Saturday morning pancakes. The taste of the blueberries inside of them jumped to his tongue and the scent of them filled his nose and made his mouth prickle and water a bit.

Her voice calling for him to wake up and come down for breakfast startled him and briefly stilled his left hand that had been clenching and unclenching her night time hair scarf that had been part of the treasures in the box. He watched the recording as his breath hitched in silent sobs. Mom had started singing as she finished the pancakes and extra bacon which, she later slapped his hand for trying to steal some of. The sound of her soft sweet voice simultaneously calmed Taylor and increased the despair in his heart. He started to smile as he remembered the conversation at breakfast that day after he had finally got up and came down to join her.

"Aw, common' mom just one more piece?" Taylor was using the puppy dog gambit on her with his eyes stretched wide and batting eyelashes, all the while holding up two fingers instead of one.

"What do you need all that bacon for anyway? Please, please,pleasepleaseplease." Taylor poured it on knowing she couldn't resist those big brown eyes of his which were so much like her own.

"What I do with my bacon is my business, grown folks business. So stay out of it."

With a smirk on her face turning from the frying pan she finally sees Taylor trying to put the moves on her with the big puppy dog eyes. He nails it with the puppy dog whine. She chuckles at him and relents.

"Okay, okay. Just two more. Now hurry up and finish eating before you're late for practice."

Taylor watches them on screen sitting and enjoying each other, just spending time with each other over Saturday morning breakfast. Every time he would glance at the pile of bacon on the plate that his mom had purposely moved out of his reach he had to smile. The pile of left over bacon also explained the extra little pep his mom had as well as the Jasmine perfume that was in the air that morning. She didn't usually put on her perfume if she was just going to be hanging out at home and doing house work. He didn't really notice it then but now he saw how beautiful she looked. With light makeup on, her hair piled at the back of her head in a messy up do, wearing some nice but fitted jeans, sandals and with her favorite orchid colored blouse on, she seemed relaxed and happy. He knew the bacon was for John so he must have been coming to see his mom that morning. Even though she had tried to make it look like she didn't, she had taken extra time to look nice today and was looking forward to John's visit.

"Taylor baby," she said with that 'I need you to do me a favor' lilt in her voice.

Taylor recognizes that tone well and gives her the side eye as he responds with a scoff.

"Yeah mom? Whatcha' need me to do for you today?"

He watches her smile at him and then she tells him what she wants him to do. He doesn't remember what the task was and now can't hear what it was because of the sobs steadily pouring from him as he watches himself and his mother enjoy their pancakes. He sees himself agree to the request with a nod of his head.

"Thank you sweetie.", she beams at him as he gets up from the table and brings his dishes to the sink for washing.

She reaches over and grabs him in a tight hug and proudly says, "That's my baby boy. And look at you, growing into such a handsome and awesome man."

With tears shinning in her eyes she steps back from him when he tries to get away and with teenage chagrin he expels a long, "Mooooommmmm."

But she's not going to let him escape and quickly grabs him again and peppers his face with small kisses. She's laughing all the while he's protesting the affection, after all he is a teenager now. But he remembers loving every kiss as they landed lightly all over his face. He finally escapes her embrace and waves goodbye as he grabs his backpack and disappears off camera on his way out the door to school.

"I love you Taylor." Floats out the door behind him and his "I know mom, love you too." chases it back inside as the door closes.

With the snick of the door's close in the recording, the anger Taylor was holding towards his mother is released and drains from his heart and his body. Taylor was sure that she had always taken as many precautions as possible to ensure her safety while she was on duty. He watched her enact one of those precautions earlier this year when he noticed that even though she wasn't required to, she had started wearing her Kevlar vest every day when she went to work. He knew that she wouldn't have wanted to leave him, his Nana, or John. She would have fought to stay here. She loved them and did her best to stay safe.

That certainty of her love for him broke through the anger and despair and freed his heart to truly grieve her loss. He had never stopped loving her but the grief of losing her had made him angry and had tried to harden his heart. Taylor wiped his face with his tear soddened shirt and continued to listen to his mom's voice singing as she cleaned up from breakfast and waited for John. He started to look at the items in disarray on his bed. He lovingly lifted her hair scarf to his nose and was enveloped in the scent of the coconut, olive and tea tree oil hair products and her favorite Jasmine perfume. Long ago that mixture had set up in his head and heart and became home to him. But in his soul it would always be 'mom'.

Looking at the things in disarray around him on the bed he couldn't believe some of the stuff his mom had kept. There was his hand print in hard clay dough from second grade and here was every Mother's Day card he had given her since kindergarten. Crushed dried wild flowers he had picked and given her the summer he turned 6 when they went to visit family by the sea shore tried to crumble under his reluctant touch. His shaking hand tenderly held the ticket from their first time on the Cyclone at Coney Island, yellowed and stained with mustard from the Nathan's hot dog he had practically inhaled just before they boarded the coaster, then thrown it up during the first steep descent from the top of the ride.

A glint of light from inside the box caught his eye and he lifted out one of her prized possessions, a picture of her and him at the seashore. This picture held the vaunted position on her bedside night stand under the lamp. His 10 year old self sat confidently and snugly in her loving embrace. Their faces mooshed together as close as possible with her lips puckered in readiness to deliver the kiss that moments later left a sloppy wet spot on his cheek. His smile showed love and joy and mirrored his mom's. The pride her eyes held when she looked at Taylor that day he remembered made him a little embarrassed but he would never forget it. It was a fantastic time filled with fun, light and the simple enjoyment of having his mom all to himself for one entire day.

The frame and glass was irreparably broken. His tantrum had destroyed them. As gently as possible, Taylor was trying to remove the photo from the glass and the twisted frame without doing any more damage to the actual picture. The mantra, "I can fix this, I can fix this, I can fix this.", was running through his mind. He started to berate his self about his actions. How could he be so stupid? Why would he not want to see or remember his mother, the one person he never had any doubts about loving him. He rescued the photo but it did not get out of the destroyed frame unscathed. The pieces of glass cut the photo in one or two spots but had also scratched it pretty badly in others.

As he went to discard the backing it separated into two pieces and another photo slipped out from between the two cardboard halves. The second photo flipped over and gently wafted left to right as it slowly drifted down to the floor at Taylor's feet. For a second or two Taylor just looked at the picture where it settled half on his foot, tilted face down resting on his shoe. There was nothing written on the back like mom usually labeled all her photos. He could hear her voice telling him why she labeled each and every photo in their house.

"Well baby we need to let the legacy of the past inform the designers of the future. Someday no one will be around that you can ask questions about what was going on in these pictures and who the people are that are in them."

The fact that a second photo, and one with no label at that, had been hidden behind the first one confused and intrigued him.

Bending over to retrieve the picture from on top of his shoe, flipping it over between his index and ring finger, the people with such happy smiles on their faces stopped him from straightening up completely. A man in military dress with a blond lady sat at a table with drinks on it in front of what looked like palm trees. Their smiles beamed out at him from the old style photograph. It must have been warm where they were because she had on a sleeveless dress with thin straps. The drinks had those little paper umbrellas in them like they are supposed to be made with fruit. The lady was very pretty but she was not what had Tylor frozen halfway between the floor and sitting upright on the bed.

The man in the picture, the man who seemed very relaxed, the man whose smile showed how happy and glad he was to be there with the woman in the picture, the man who's bright blue eyes where shining out at Taylor, was John. Mr. BA himself, who Taylor only saw smile while he was with his mother. Mr. BA who always seemed so sad and somewhat lonely even though Mr. Finch was his friend. Mr. BA who was supposed to have had his mom's back, that is until he didn't.

Confusion, anger, disappointment and longing sprung up together and were at war in Taylor's heart. Those emotions flitted across his face as he tried to put the picture into context. Why did his mother have a picture of John with some woman? Why did she have it hidden behind their picture? Why did she keep it on the night stand so close to her? Why didn't she tell him about the picture? His face contorted in anger and disappointment as he glared at the man in the picture who was there to save him but not his mom. Anger at John surged through him. Taylor wanted to wipe that happy smile off John's face. He had no right to enjoy his life. And who was the woman? Was this his girlfriend by his side, his wife?

Somethings were falling into place for him. He remembered that his mom was so preoccupied those last couple of weeks. In his memory Taylor saw worry etched across her brow the last few days of her life. She was so distracted that he often had to call or speak to her a couple of times before she would respond. Her phone would ring a lot more often than usual and she would not answer it. He had thought that maybe she and John had had a fight. A sadness and weariness followed her and it had begun to worry Taylor. He knew that when a police officer was distracted they made mistakes which could lead to them getting hurt or killed.

Anger supplanted all other emotions on Taylor's face as he looked at the picture of John and the blonde lady. This picture explained a lot. His mom was a detective after all. He knew his mom had feelings for John but apparently what he thought he had seen on John's face wasn't love for his mom after all. Taylor was certain the worry, the sadness his mom had carried those last few days was all wrapped up in this one picture. His mom had found out that John was a playa' and had played her. That's why she had stopped answering his calls. Mom had caught John with his real girlfriend and it had broken her heart. He knew why his mother was dead. She had become distracted by John's betrayal. She wasn't paying attention and that horrible man had caught her unaware. John had made that happen. Anger flooded his being at John, at what John had done to his mother, to him. John had done more than just make her unhappy he had distracted her on her job and that distraction had cost her life. In that anger filled moment, to Taylor that cop Simmons had come after his mom but John was the one that had fired the shot. John had taken his mother's life.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to give a shout out to those who have read and reviewed this story. Thank you. You put ideas in my head…. ;-)

I would like to give a shout out to those who have read and reviewed this story. Thank you. You put ideas in my head…. ;-)

Bear heard him before Harold did. He always did. Bear was ever vigilant but to Harold he seemed to have a special sense for when John would be showing up at the library. And as usual Bear's skittishness and extra energy he started exhibiting about an hour before Harold heard the gate at the end of the hall open was an indication of when he could expect John to walk in.

Before John's dog came to live at the Library Harold rarely knew when John was in the library unless John wanted him to know he was there. Many a day John would startle him with his presence at his elbow and he'd had no idea he was around. The corners of Harold's mouth take a slight downward turn as he remembers one morning in particular when John had done just that. Harold had fallen asleep at the keyboard and had no idea that morning had come until John's baritone voice had startled him out of his sleep.

"Good morning Finch." John gently states as he sets a cup of tea on the desk by Harold's slumbering head.

With a gasp and a start, partially sitting up, Harold looks up to see John standing in front of him. Harold wasn't sure if he was still frightened or just incredulous about John's rudeness and with irritation in his voice asked John, "Don't you knock?"

"Not if I can help it."

The smile now on Harold's face accompanies his thoughts about how at the time John was trying to find out as much as he could about him. So sneaking up on Harold when he was sleeping, asking him about his talents by way of looking for a new job for him after John found out where he worked and following him around town became a bit of a game for Harold and John. The smile that played on Harold lips let out a deep chuckle when he thought of the frustrated expressions that he saw on John's face more than a few times when Harold thwarted his efforts to find out more about him. John was flummoxed by how Harold could avoid him most of the time when he tailed him. And if truth be told Harold did enjoy their game of tag as it were after he was sure that John only wanted to know what he was really about, if he could be trusted.

Bear's claws scrabbling on the polished wooden floor brings Harold back to the present. Harold stiffly turns to the left to watch Bear hurry down the hall to get to John. Seeing that ball of power flying down the hall towards him, John gives commands to Bear so that they both don't end up on the floor…again.

"Bear stop. Zitten. Goede jongen. Verblijf"

The Dutch commands John quietly issued to bear had Bear heeled and waiting at the stairs but anxiously looking at John over his shoulder. Harold could see Bear was just about in doggie heaven waiting to go with his master on one of their hours long walks.

By way of CCTV and traffic cameras Harold would watch John walk and walk and walk all over the city then drag his exhausted self back to the loft day after day. Now he watched John walk slowly down the hall and approach the table where all of the monitors sat and eyed them almost warily. Harold tried not to look as worried as he felt when he observed his friend. John was healing but he seemed to not be all there. Harold wasn't quite sure what it was or how to help fix it.

Even though his face was a bit gaunt, John looked pretty normal to Harold. He knew John wasn't quite back to his fighting weight yet but was confident that he would regain those last few pounds. He had watched John's body heal day by day and helped it along until John wouldn't take his help any longer. When John first regained consciousness, the pain from his damaged body that was written across his face masked everything. Now as Harold looked into the depths of John's eyes he could see that the pain that had seemed to take up residence in his soul had all but extinguished the fire of life and purpose that had been building within his friend.

John's brow drew down into creases as he looked at the screens Harold had been observing.

"What are you doing Finch?" John croaked out.

His voice sounded even lower and raspier than usual. Harold knew it was from disuse for John had hardly spoken since he woke up. Finch looked back at the screens. He had been so preoccupied with ruminating about his friend's current state that he had forgotten to change the feeds before John got close enough to the table to see the screens. On two of the screens were feeds of Taylor Carter.

John had become torn about going to the library. He knew that Finch had done all that he could to help him recover and wanted Harold to know that he was healing and ok. But he wasn't ok and he felt that he never would be again. Gun shots, knife wounds, torture and mayhem were SOP in his life – all survivable. But losing Joss…..

On his walk to the library John had been thinking about how his life had come to this point. Why his life was what he had to face now.

Losing Jessica had almost become his undoing. The vow he had made to himself after her death to never let anyone into his heart again he couldn't even keep. It lay as broken and dead on the street as Joss did in his arms. That night that street corner never seemed to be far from his thoughts-his nightmares. He wanted to curse Joss for how she had worked her way under his skin then into his heart so much so that he finally broke that vow. But his heart wouldn't let the words even form in his mind. He could never say such horrible things about her. He had fallen in love with Detective Jocelyn Carter. But it was too late. She would never know that she had become not only his reason for change but his reason for living.

She had asked John two things as she lay dying in his arms. Not to go back to the man he had been and to look in on her son. He hadn't planned on going back to the man he had been, he had just planned on dying. A part of him still wasn't happy that Finch had found him bleeding out in that hotel room as he tried to kill Quinn. Ten minutes later and it would have all been over. Quinn would have been dead and so would he.

But Finch was right when he told him that killing Quinn would not have been what Joss wanted for him. He was not honoring her memory by killing Quinn and Simmons or by dying. Yes he had been on that rampage for his own crazy self. He had just admitted in his heart that he loved Joss and they had taken her away from him. They had to pay. But even if they did pay Joss was not coming back. Once again he had lost his connection to the world. He was only still in it because she would want him to be.

John didn't know how he could do that, stay in this place, this world without her. He had failed to protect her and keep her safe. He had failed to not go back to that man he had been because that's just what he had done when he went after Quinn and what he would have done to get Simmons if someone hadn't beat him to it. Worst of all he had failed her by not looking in on her heart, her son Taylor since she died.

Joss would truly hate him forever if she could see how he failed her even now by not taking care of Taylor.

John picks up his pace as he hurries to the meet Finch. Today he had to tell Finch he couldn't stay. It would be the last time he saw Bear so he would take him on a walk to the park with him. When he returned he would let Finch know he was leaving. He would miss them all but mostly Finch. John hadn't had a real friend in a very long time and reluctantly Finch had become a friend.

A chuckle, a rear thing these days, escapes John as he remembers telling the thugs from the Arian Nation that very thing when he went looking for the then kidnapped Finch. The chuckle quiets down to a melancholy smile as John thinks about Finch and wonders how Finch is going to be able to work the numbers without him. But he can't stay.

John stops and sees his feet have delivered him to the library even faster then he thought. He stills his thoughts, goes through the entrance and up the steps to the gate. Bear is already on his feet and hurtling down the hall at a breakneck speed. John issues the needed commands in Dutch that will keep him and Bear from ending all tangled up on the floor…again. With a small whimper Bear comes to a screeching halt barely 10 inches from John and sits as commanded. With encouragements and a pat to Bear's head John walks around him heading to where Harold is sitting at the keyboard.

As he gets closer John can see the poorly hidden concern Finch has for him. Finch can't seem to help being worried about John though John has tried to make it seem like things are getting back to normal. John scoffs to himself because it appears that he's failed in that too. Finch knows that John's body might be healing well but his heart is not and he sees the truth of that on Harold's face as he approaches the work table. John nears Finch and the monitors of that untrustworthy machine. He blindly followed it but it couldn't save her. It didn't save her.

Finch's gaze is still trained on John and studying his features as John glances at the monitors. He stops in his tracks and gruffly asks Finch what he's working on. John's eyes are now switching between two monitors as the machine tracks Taylor Carter on them both.

Harold had been closely monitoring Taylor Carter since the week of his mother's murder. He had heard what Joss had tasked John with as she lay dying. Because John had been so badly injured he was not able to even attempt to complete those tasks. So Harold took on the task of keeping an eye on Taylor and would do so until John was in better shape and could pick it up on his own.

This was a terrible time for Taylor and Harold was sure that the boy wasn't really thinking about things to come. Harold was though. Taylor might not think he had a very bright future ahead of him but Harold was going to do everything in his considerable power to give him the best chance for success he could. That was how he planned on honoring Joss' sacrifice.

It was a small thing for Harold to set up a trust fund for Taylor. So he set up three. One was an actual trust fund that he would start receiving funds from on his 18th birthday. It was not so big that it would draw attention to Taylor or make his father suspicious but would continue long past the time any trust fund of such modest means would have run out of money. The other two were really grants that Taylor would be awarded at different times during his educational journey. Harold had double, triple and quadruple checked and buried the funding sources of all three and was confident that if something happened to them all Taylor would not have to worry about finishing college debt free.

He had also put a bug in a few strategically placed ears that keeping an eye on and giving a young man named Taylor Carter, the son of the slain police hero, a job in the near future would be very beneficial for their own future financial plans. Harold was mostly pleased with the plans for Taylor he had set in motion but wished he could do more to honor his mother. Harold hoped that doing more for Joss would be in the form of helping John heal and move on.

John's ground out question brought Harold back to the library and to John who was standing at his side. He had been planning to show John what he had done with providing an education for Taylor and that he had been monitoring how Taylor had been dealing with his mother's death. Harold had hoped that his efforts on Taylor's behalf might shed a bit of light on John's sorrowful state. As Harold looked back up into John's face he could see that he had miscalculated what seeing Taylor would do for John.

"You've been watching Taylor." rushes from John in a whispered statement and a question.

Finch is surprised not by the sadness or regret he sees on John's face but by the brief flash of anger that flits across his eyes.

"I had hoped to tell you, Mr. Reese, about my efforts on Taylor's behalf when you were sufficiently healed."

John's left hand reaches for the screen and stops just short of touching Taylor's image. Harold sees the minute tremble in John's hand before John snatches it back and wipes it across the bottom of his face like he's trying to wipe the sadness away.

"What did you do Harold?" John questions gently while his eyes never leave Taylor's face. "Will he be alright? How is he doing?

With an uncharacteristic stutter Finch begins to tell John the plans he's put into action on behalf of Joss for her son Taylor.

"I um I know that Taylor is an excellent student. As I found out the night he spent with us after his kidnapping he has a keen interest in computer programming and security. His grades in math and physics are in the 99th percentile. He and …Joss had started the application process to numerous colleges. None of them were Ivy League colleges. I had taken the uh…." Finch's explanation trails off as does his voice.

He looks at John and John patiently returns his look with an inquiring one of his own. He's not sure how John will take the next bit of information. Finch nervously clears his throat and dives back into his explanation and reasoning hoping the fallout will be minimal after John hears what he did.

"Ah, A few months before her death when I had found out that they were in the process of applying to colleges, I took the liberty of looking into Joss', uh finances."

When the expected upbraiding and anger fest didn't materialize Harold was emboldened and continued.

"With his grades Taylor could easily get into basically any college especially the Ivy League ones. I was once again impressed by Joss' resourcefulness and her frugality by how much she had managed to save and invest for Taylor's college fund. However with Joss' meager pay she would not have the funds needed to give the boy the education he needed and deserved." " I wanted to honor her in some small way so...I set up some trust funds and other financial fail safes to ensure Taylor would be able to attend any college of his choosing as well as obtain a job worthy of his budding genius in an off shoot of our line of work."

John did react then. The anger and fear was evident in John's voice as he turned on Harold and fiercely addressed him.

"Finch I don't want him doing this, this work. I want him as far away from the numbers and that erratic and untrustworthy thing of yours as is humanly possible. If he knows of that thing then Samaritan will come after him. I can't afford to lose him too. I won't make it if he dies because of that machine of yours. I, I ….."

Harold is watching John and sees his throat working up and down as he's unable to spit out the words. Putting his hand on John's wrist as Harold stands he guides John to take the chair he has vacated. John ungracefully sits in the chair offered and resumes his staring contest with the image of Taylor on the monitors.

John has started speaking so quietly that Harold has to strain to hear him and moves in closer to pick up his words.

"I haven't seen him since before she…." Unable to finish his sentence John reaches forward and gently touches Taylor's image.

The glistening moisture on John's cheek catches Harold off guard and he watches a solitary tear as it leaves John's wounded eyes and travels down the sharp cheek bone then splatters on the desk into little droplets.

"I couldn't protect her Harold. I promised her I'd have her back." A rueful chuckle escapes John's dry lips.

"When I got Taylor back for her she was so happy with me. I could see the trust she had in me on her face." John stiffly turns to Harold and the pain in John's eyes has Harold stifling a sob.

"She told me she was glad that I was a man who kept his word. Well Harold I'm not that guy am I. I promised Joss that I had her back. I promised her that I would be there to protect her. That night in the morgue I told her that I couldn't lose her. Where is she Harold? She should be here, not me"

Breathing hard John turns to Harold and the sorrow on his friends face makes him reach for John. "Why do I keep losing Harold? Why couldn't I save her?" Harold gently lays his hand on John's shoulder and rubs it back and forth across his back and shoulders. The unshed tears in John's eyes elicits a similar response from Harold's as he watches John bend his head and silently loose the tears he can no longer hide.

After a few moments of shared grief Harold leaves and returns with a glass of water for John. He places it by his hand but it goes unnoticed by John. Harold roughly clears his throat and in an effort to alleviate some of the sadness that now permeates the air he goes back to telling John about how he's been monitoring Taylor and what his plans are for his future.

When Harold finishes with the details John slowly raises his self from the chair and gingerly wipes his eyes as he reaches for a tissue. John takes one last look at the monitor and Taylor's image before he turns and starts for the exit giving Bear commands as he walks.

"Bear. Riem. Lopen." Bear is overjoyed to be released from his previous commands, scurries to retrieve the leash and hurries back to John's side.

"John, wait, please." Harold implores him to stay and the ache John hears in in his voice makes him stop but he doesn't turn around. "I'm just looking in on Taylor until you're able to. I know you are going to be keeping track of him now that.."

"How Harold? Every time I look at him I see her. I promised her I'd, I promised I would…" John stops talking. Harold hears him exhale and watches John's shoulders sag in defeat as he seems to crumple in on himself.

With an emotion clogged voice Harold responds, "I know John, I was there too."

John is moving again, fast, with Bear at his side. His voice floats back over his shoulder as his coat bellows out from his sides. "I can't do it. I can't fail her again Finch. Thank you for doing this, for keeping an eye on him for her. I'm sorry. Bears waiting."

The crash of the gate signals to Finch that John with Bear in tow has fled the building.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Zitten. Goede jongen. Verblijf = Sit. Good boy. Stay. Riem. Lopen = Leash. Walk


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy birthday Andrea! ;-) This is for you.

Lionel's phone flashes, Unknown Number, and he considers whether he should answer or ignore it. It's not that he doesn't want to talk to Glasses or Wonder boy, it's just been a little strained in their presence since… He looks over at Carter's desk and his eyes get misty. He can still hear her voice from the last time they spoke. He thought their conversation was going in one direction, a bad one, when she gave him the best gift she could have ever given him.

"After all the stuff we've been through I thought you trusted me. Yeah I know, once a dirty cop the stink can never wash off ya."

"No Fusco. You are my friend and the best partner I've ever had. But I can't get you mixed up in this mess."

Carter did trust him and knew that he had changed. He was no longer that dirty cop she had first met. He had done the work, broke away from the corruption and came back to who he really was - a loving father, a good cop and a great partner.

He releases a long low sigh as her voice fades from his mind. A small smile tugs at one side of his lips as he remembers that she ditched him that night to keep him from going with her to get Quinn. She was just trying to keep him safe even though that didn't work out so well for Lionel as Simmons abducted him and tortured him later that evening. He wanted to kill Simmons so badly, especially for how he had one of his thugs break into his house and almost kill his son. He still occasionally thanks Shaw for her saving his boy's life that night. Even though she hates it he'll never stop thanking her for his son's life.

A full smile sprang to Lionel's face as he thought about what had happened to Simmons after his arrest. He enjoyed knowing that someone had garroted Simmons as he lay in his hospital bed trying to recover from the beat down Lionel had given him when he found him trying to escape at that airport. He was glad though that he had honored Carter by not killing Simmons the night he tracked him down as he tried to hop that plane and flee the country.

The buzzing coming from the forgotten phone in his left hand sends Lionel a few months back as Unknown Number had flashed on the screening then urging him to pick up the call.

He knew it wasn't Wonder boy. He hadn't seen or heard from John since before Joss was killed. Finch had told him about 4 days after that horrible night that John had been shot too, was in a coma and in critical condition. After that he'd check with Finch every two or three days to see about John's condition. One day he called and John was unconscious, 5 days later he woke up and 8 days after that Finch had called him telling him that John had basically checked his self out and gone home to be alone and lick his wounds.

That's when Finch conscripted him to keep an eye on John. When he thinks of it Lionel often scoffs at that conversation because it was one that he never in a million years thought he would ever have with Finch.

"How are you today Detective?"

Finch's voice sounded a note or two higher than normal and what Lionel wasn't sure but he couldn't put his finger on it. He could hear a tiredness to Finch's voice and the same sadness that he heard in his own these days. He almost answered Finch with the usual thing you're supposed to say a few weeks after you've lost someone but his eyes traveled over to Joss' desk and the canned replay stuck in his throat.

Blinking rapidly to keep the tears at bay he could feel that stupid lump trying to form in his throat again.

"Ahem. One foot in front of the other and trying not to stumble every second step Finch."

"I understand Detective. The grieving process can be…"

Lionel is somewhat concerned when Finch just trails off. He's never known him to be at a loss for words. A brief shared silence is broken when Finch takes a breath and continues.

"Uhm, I'm calling you Detective because I need your help."

"Sure Glasses. Where do you need me to be? Am I helping Sam?"

"No, no. I don't need your services in that capacity today. What I need is for…for John."

Lionel gritted his teeth because the last thing he needed was for John to have become Tall, Dark and Deranged again. It sounded like Finch was concerned that there may be more of the same coming down the pike now that John was up again.

"Where are the bodies this time Finch?"

"Detective it's not anything like that this time, or at least I hope it won't turn into that," Finch answered distractedly. "What I really need is a favor."

Lionel could hear the worry in Finch's voice and feel the tension rolling off him coming through the phone. Finch was very worried about their friend. And if Glasses was worried then he should be too. John had already run a scorched earth campaign trying to get to Simmons. In his bid to get Quinn to get to Simmons John had reopened his gunshot wounds and almost bled out. John acting out through his grief and anger over Carter's death almost had them losing two friends in less than a month.

"Well you see, John hasn't um, communicated with me since he went home Detective. Now, I know he goes out into the city most days but I'm afraid he is not being very keen on his own welfare right now. I call him and he more often than not, won't answer my calls. Against his wishes I went to his home and he…," Finch sighs, "it looks like Mr. Reese is not eating regularly. He's lost weight and though I'm loath to say it, he doesn't seem like he's even all present, um, mentally."

"Ok. Finch. Gimme his address and I'll go by and drop him off something to eat and check up on him. What's he like to eat?"

"I'm afraid Detective that won't be possible. His address I mean. John's a rather privet person."

"Then what is it you expect me to do Finch, follow him and make sure he eats while he's out?"

"Yes, exactly Detective; that's more in line with what I had in mind."

"Wait. Let me get this straight. You want me to follow John Reese, and take him to lunch and maybe even a little dinner every day?!"

"Well not every day but 4 to 5 times a week should be sufficient until he is healing better. Thank you so much for doing this Detective I can't express my gratitude for your help with John. Please let me know how he's doing after your…..uh meetings. I'll be speaking to you soon. Good bye Detective."

Lionel stared at the phone as the dial tone laughingly buzzed at him before it disconnected. Finch had hung up on him before he could tell him he was out of his mind. How was he, a lowly cop, supposed to tail an ex CIA assassin, especially one of John's caliber and not be made or even worse made into hamburger when John caught him tailing him. But Finch had a plan for that. He would call Lionel and tell him where to go so that he could bump into John on some pretense of him being in the area on police business.

The first time they tracked John Lionel was shocked at what he saw. Lionel hadn't seen John since before Carter had ditched him in front of the precinct on that horrible night. His slightly gaunt face and pale coloring threw Lionel and he knew that Glasses was right to be worried about John. He was walking slightly hunched over, withdrawn into himself and when he walked past Lionel without acknowledging that he had even seen him, Lionel was worried too.

So Lionel was on board with Finch's plan and started having as many meals with John as he could swing. John had figured out what they were up to by the second week. He was still not his self so he let the arranged meals slide. Because he let it continue Lionel realized that John wanted as well as need his company at this point in his life and every now and then he even welcomed sharing a meal with Lionel. They dropped the pretense after week three and started meeting whenever Lionel could get away and John could tolerate company. Cop shop talk and companionable silence over a meal or four every week was now de rigueur.

When the phone buzzed for the fourth time and shook him from the past, he figured he should answer it.

"What do you need glasses?", he answers gruffly.

"Good morning Detective. John just paid me a visit but I fear when he left he was not in the best frame of mind. He took Bear so I believe he may be heading to a park at some point today."

John was making progress in getting better. He was taking Finch's calls now, eating at least two meals a day and every now and then sounding and looking like himself. But Finch was telling him John had had a very bad day and possibly taken a step or ten backward in the healing process.

"You need me to shadow him for a bit today?"

"Actually Detective, I would like you to spend time with him today, if he allows it. If he doesn't just stay close, please."

"Alright, will do. Hey Finch. What set him off?"

"I was showing John provisions that Joss had made for Taylor to attend college. I showed him those things to let him know that I was keeping an eye on Taylor for him until he could do that for himself. My hope was that the news about Taylor would bring him some peace but I fear my timing was quite off. He continues to feel that he should have died that night. Because of his injuries he hasn't kept a promise that he made to Joss about Taylor on the night of her death and he's ashamed because he thinks he's failed her."

Lionel blows a slow breath out of his nose before answering Finch.

"OK, ok. I'm kind busy right now but just text me when he finally lights someplace and I'll go see where his head's at."

"Thank you Lionel. Until then."

Carter. Of course it was talking about her that set John off. Lionel didn't talk with John about Joss at all these days. For one it was hard talking about his partner. When he did, especially at the precinct he was always expecting her to come walking up to her desk and bust his chops about something he was supposed to be looking into or some paper work he had tried to avoid completing. But just in general thinking about her made his heart break all over again for her loss and Taylors destroyed life.

When John finally started talking to him during some of their meals Lionel thought that it might help both of them work through their grief if they talked about Joss. The first and really, only, conversation they had about her started with Lionel telling John how much he missed her. It ended minutes later with John ranting about how she should still be here, not him. John fled from the restaurant grinding glass under his heals from the plate glass window he had just smashed with the chair he had been sitting in. Lionel didn't hear from John for almost a week after that. He had started to say something to John about her one other time after the restaurant debacle but had looked up into John's eyes just before he said her name and what he saw in their depths shook him so badly that the words dried up on his tongue and he never talked with John about Joss or Taylor again.

After ending the call from Finch, Lionel distractedly goes back to his current mountains of never ending paperwork. He thought that their unorthodox meal therapy was helping John but he wasn't so sure now. While his fingers on auto pilot shuffle, separate and stack his paperwork Lionel's mind is trying to work out how he's going to handle his worst nightmare and come out of it in one piece. An off the rails John Reese is anyone's worst nightmare. The thought of coming out of it in one piece after dealing with John has a nervous laugh escaping Lionel's lips. Forget escaping Johns bad mood in one piece; he'll settle for just coming out of it alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for waiting for this chpter. I think my muse for this story is slowly returning. RL has jumped in there too but Nevertheless I persist.


	9. Chapter 9

Taylor could no longer contain his spark of anger as he continued to stare at the picture of John and his side piece; the picture a witness to John's betrayal of his mother. Then that spark had jumped from the picture in his hand and destroyed some of the items in the box of his mother's things.

He could not sit any longer and look at that picture. Taylor sprung from the bed and started to pace across his room. What he thought was pacing was very loud stomping and the sound of more items crashing to the floor after he swept them off of his dresser was heard downstairs by his father Paul. The crash and tinkle of broken glass didn't register with Taylor. All he could hear was the blood rushing through his ears.

john, John, JOHN! He almost screamed that douche bags name out loud. "Don't worry Taylor I got her back.", John, "I'll keep her safe Taylor, I promise", John, "She means more than anything to me, Taylor." Where were you when she needed you, John. Mom was wrong when she said that you kept your promises. I thought you were a badass who could do what you promised me. But she's dead, and you're not.

"LIAR" he screams at the image of John and flings the picture on the floor.

Throwing on his jacket over the fleece shirt he's wearing Taylor grabs his long board, his back pack and once again picks up the picture and glowers at it and stuffs it into his left side pocket. He needs to go, get away from his mom's memory and things to think. Still running on anger he stomps out of his bedroom slamming the door behind him. The pressure to go, get away has been building for the past week or two and now compels him to leave his Dad's house…..my house. He corrected his self and the thought that he was supposed to think of it as his house now added fuel to the fire that the photo of John and that woman had sparked.

Paul had heard Taylor up in his room stomping around and was thinking to go up and see what was going on with his son. Since Joss' death Taylor had moved in with him for good and he had tried to give his son space when he needed it which seemed to be always. He was proud of his son and at the same time his heart broke watching him navigate the terribly rough and choppy sea of grief. He had processed his mother's death quickly. Paul guessed that Taylor had been living with that possibility for so long that in some ways he had been ready for it. He had processed it, accepted it but was still trying to learn how to deal with it.

Paul was having difficulty dealing with Joss' death so he was taking a hands off approach with Taylor's handling of his own grief and letting him express it in most any way he needed to. But the increasing level of noise issuing from upstairs was raising his concern. The noise drifting down from the ceiling ebbed and flowed from small sounds to thundering footsteps. The last few minutes though it had increased to 'I better check on him levels' so Paul rose from his place on the couch by the window and approached the stair case.

Before Paul could place his foot on the first step Taylor's door flew open, he rushed through it and slammed it behind him. Paul watched him angrily navigate the short distance to the top of the stairs and then try to take them down two at a time. The expression on Taylor's face was pure anger. Paul's concern for Taylor went into overdrive so he stepped back to block Taylor's descent but was almost knocked down when Taylor barely slowed down at the bottom of the stairs.

"Taylor. Taylor! "

The bass in Paul's voice final broke Taylor out of the cloud of anger he was immersed in and he stopped and looked his father in the eye. But he really didn't see Paul and missed the look of love and worry he had on his face for his son.

"What's going on son? Sounds like things got pretty intense up there."

Paul could see that Taylor was not listening to him, that he was not getting through to him. He lower's his voice and tries some of the techniques his therapist uses on him when he first sought help for his PTS episodes. He'd get stuck in an anger loop and the therapist would use a soothing voice, a light touch and reason to bring him back to ground. So he reaches out to touch his son and lays his hand on Taylor's arm. Paul becomes even more concerned because Taylor is so stressed his body is actually vibrating.

He sees the expression on Taylor's face and will try anything to keep him from walking out the door. He's blinded by his anger and Paul knows firsthand how badly that can end. They day that Joss kicked him out of her house because he had shown up angry and drunk and then held his son with one hand while holding a gun in the other briefly flashes through his mind.

"Taylor, can you stop for a minute so we can talk?"

Taylor's eyes clear a bit and Paul can see that he at least has part of his attention. He's still breathing fast like he just ran a relay but he's stopped. Though he is not looking Paul in the eyes, he's not moving to get around him. Paul moves his hand from Taylor's arm and places his hand gently on Taylor's chest.

"Son. Talk to me. What's got you so upset?"

"People lie Dad. They make you trust them and then they lie and they don't care who gets hurt or killed!"

Paul knows that something has happened to rip the bandage off of Taylor's grief. The wound is open again and his child is in so much pain it almost trips up Paul. He knows he has to be a calming and guiding influence for Taylor but is afraid he might not be able to right now. Joss was the rock, the shelter a calming center for both of them but she is gone. So he tries to do the best he can for his….their son.

Paul knew that Taylor was harboring some resentment towards his mother because she had died. Paul's therapist had warned him that Taylor might go through this during his grief as a lot of children do upon the death of a parent. He had told Paul that even though he would be grieving too he needed to be present for Taylor and try to reinforce the truth, that his mother didn't lie to him or that she wasn't doing all she could to be safe. She loved him and would never want to be separated from. It had been a struggle for Paul because he had to push back his own grieving to help his boy. He was the only parent now. So he stepped up and had done the best he could to be there for Taylor.

Today apparently it wasn't enough.

"She's not alone. Don't worry she'll be safe. She's got people looking out for her. They've got her back." With each statement Taylor spits out his voice got a little louder. Unbidden he slips his left hand in his pocket and starts to manipulate the picture of John and that woman. He didn't mean to shout at his dad but the person he really wanted to scream at wasn't standing in front of him. In fact he hadn't heard from John or Finch since she had died. He'd tried the phone numbers that they had given him after his abduction by the mobster only to find out they were both disconnected. He had wanted to, needed to talk to John so badly in the weeks following his mom's death but he had disappeared. Finch had too. So he directed his anger at the only person he had left, his Dad.

"Liar. Lier! LIAR!"

"Taylor Samuel Carter!" Paul's quiet but forceful voice and calling him by his full name pulls some of the rage from Taylor but his breathing has increased again and he has stepped up closer to his father. Paul sees that Taylor is holding his long board, has on his back pack and is trying to step around him to go, he has no idea where. With the state of mind Taylor is in Paul is very worried about how safe he would be out on the streets on his skateboard. He reaches for the board and asks Taylor to let it go. He lets his father take the board but hardly seems to notice it's no longer in his hand. His other had is buried deep in his pocket and seems to be constantly moving. His hand now empty of the skateboard has become a fist yet the other seems to continue its dance with in his pants pocket.

"Son. Your mother loved you more than her own life. She always did her best to stay safe so she could come home to you every night. She wouldn't and didn't lie to you. Don't talk about your mother like that ever again. She had no control over what happened that night."

"She didn't, but someone could have helped her. They didn't. I, I have to go Dad. I need to think. I gotta go."

Paul is confused by Taylor's last statement as Taylor moves around him and heads for the door. He knows what happened to Fusco the night Joss was killed and why he couldn't help her. He knew Taylor did too. He didn't think Taylor held any anger toward the detective because he was unable to help his mother. But it seems that Taylor was mad at everyone. Paul turns and watches his hurting child storm towards the door with hunched shoulders and anger in every stride he takes. He can't seem to help Taylor today but wants his son to know he's important to him.

"Taylor," he calls to him. Taylor stops with his hand on the door. "Please be careful while you're out. Call me in about an hour and let me know you're ok. I'll come get you wherever you are. Just, call." Taylor doesn't answer and Paul entreats him again.

"I love you Taylor. Please be careful. Promise me you'll call me."

"Promise. Why? Promises obviously don't mean anything do they? If they did mom would still be here."

The snick of the door closing punctuates the confusion Paul feels about what he can do to help his son.

He had no idea how long it had been since he left the house. He had started out walking. When he came back to his self he realized he was running. A lot of the anger had been extinguished with the run. But his head was still filled with conflicting thoughts, his heart with intense sadness and he still felt an urgency to keep moving. He had his bus and subway passes so he caught the first bus that stopped nearby. He tired of the buses so he turned to the subways. When he finally stopped because his stomach reminded him that it needed food, he was in front of a small lunch place that his Mom loved to go to. They had been there many times because she loved not only their coffee but the Senorita bread as well. His sense of her was so strong that when he looked in the window he caught a reflection of her disappearing around the corner across the street. Taylor turns and calls after her.

"Mom?"

"Mom, wait. MOM!" He pursues her as fast as possible but doesn't seem to get close enough to catch her or for her to hear him and stop. He rounds the second corner and she is gone. Tears crawled down his cheeks as his mom's face appeared before him and just as quickly fades away.

"You idiot. She's dead, dead and ain't coming back. You're a fool chasing a ghost."

He surreptitiously wipes the tears from his face and turns to walk back to the shop. His stomach reminds him again that he may as well get something to eat. But when he arrives he can't go in because all he can see is he and his mom during happier times sitting at one of the tables, laughing and pigging out on Senorita bread. Turning from the lunch shop Taylor crosses the street and starts walking again. After just a short distance his legs feel like they weigh a ton and he feels all used up. He sits down on the grass, puts his hood up and within minutes has fallen asleep. In his sleep he smiles and laughs but tears flow again. His dreams have turned to him catching up with his mom on the street. He's hugging the stuffing out of her as she wipes the tears from his eyes and places thousands of sloppy wet kisses all over his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Paul does not know about John. Taylor's kidnapping happened about 2 years before Paul came back into their lives and they never really had the chance to address it or tell Paul about it.


End file.
